Ready or Not

Top ten things that suck about going on television:

10. If you are a guest on a talk show or newscast, the person interviewing you will have cue cards or a TelePrompTer telling him or her what to say. You will not. You are just out there on your own. And if they ask you a question you don’t know the answer to, too bad for you.

9. Seeing yourself on the monitor. Yes, that really is how big your head looks to everyone else.

8. The five minutes before you actually go live. You’re sitting there, so nervous you want to puke, while everyone else runs around, having a good time. Because they aren’t the ones going on TV. So what do they care?

7. The makeup and hair person. No matter what you say, he/she will come up with a look for you that in no way resembles how you actually look in real life, and that will cause your grandmother to call you afterward and ask if you meant to look like Paris Hilton.

6. The host and/or reporter will ignore you, except when the camera is on, and then he/she will try to make it look as if you are best friends. That is just the way it is. Move on.

5. No matter what you might have heard to the contrary, the food from Craft Services in the green room will mostly be composed of whatever you hate most…in my case, this always means tomatoes.

4. You will never get your own dressing room, but will instead have to share the ladies’ room with two quilting bee finalists from Pennsylvania who will keep going on about how nervous they are until you want to scream.

3. Inevitably, someone at the studio will call his or her niece or nephew on his or her cell phone and make you say hello to him or her, because you are the girl who saved the president, and the niece or nephew is a big fan of yours.

2. Then, when you get on the phone, the niece or nephew won’t have the slightest idea who you are.

And the number-one worst thing about going on television:

1. Right after the camera turns off, and you remember everything that just came out of your mouth.

And you want to die.